[released] Dead Run

Thanks to everyone's input, Dead Run has finally been released to the iOS App Store. Also, I've made a Game On A Tee for it... I've always like designing t-shirts, and this idea seemed to fit, so what the hey! :)

3 and a half weeks later, on a Sunday/Monday night, unfortunately we were not able to get a beta iOS build out in time due to some performance and framerate or something issues (and time), but in the meantime, here's a beta WEB build :) It's hosted on a different location than the previous one so do take note:

1. Added the Marshmallow Boogeyman, adding a new dimension for the gameplay2. Tweet feature3. iOS build (drop me your email if you want a build)4. Duos of zombie/humans now possible5. General bug fixes6. Hats!

Changes history

1. All the spiffy pretty day/night cycle stuff2. Zombie head juice3. Misc communicative juice4. The swing is WAY faster5. The game's harder with the inclusion of... Something. You'll see. But not much yet ;)6. Delays and things work properly now7. Basic instructions!8. You'll notice... decorative elements :) They'll be earned and have certain effects come the final game.9. Various other things.10. Player will use the bat unless there's something to shoot, where it'll attempt to use the gun.11. Bat-spam removed.

Known issues:

> The iOS build's timing is off so duo zombies are impossible to kill. Sorry!> Marshmallow Boogeyman doesn't animate on the web build> Marshmallow Boogeyman is buggy.> Pause button's press will trigger an attack when you resume.

1. Difficulty ramp is still to be tweaked, will get harder, at the same time give the shotgun a better reason to exist, hopefully. I'd talk about it but it feels like it's better tested than talked about.2. Pause causes crash in one scenario. Don't find it ;)3. Achievements still need to be added.4. Sharing to be implemented (only works from iOS)

Find anything wrong/missing/weird/funny? Let us know!

We're almost there! Last mile is always the hardest, really... Thanks for all your input!

Enjoy the beta! :D

-------------------------Below was info for the alpha build:

Hiya!

So excited to show you guys this! :D We made it in two weeks (so far)

So, one day last week we were supposed to be working on Rocketto on the Friday evening, and we got inspired by all the hype around Flappy to learn from it - that is, to make a game really quick (we budgeted 2 weeks) with minimum scope, but to leave time to polish the crap out of it, and put it out to market. So we brainstormed around for an idea for a tiny-scope game, and this is the result - Dead Run.

1. Does anything confuse you?2. Do you wonder where anything comes from?3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much?4. Does it feel too hard/too easy?5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way?6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used?7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :D

The game is about: (please play the game first!!!! XD)

The game is super simple. It's a runner.You have one control - tap to attack. You have a shotgun and a baseball bat.There are zombies. Kill them.There civilians. Don't shoot them, you'll rescue them. Some of them will give you shells.

Finishing off

As of yesterday we put in two weekends on it, and we're going to probably put in this week to polish - that's sound, the right juice, the right instructions, the right everything - we want the play to be as absolutely smooth as possible.

Which is where you can help us!!! :DHopefully you've played the game already before getting to read this, and you've let us know what you think - there are some obviously broken bits like the score not counting at the end of each game, and we've skipped the title screen for now (the game isn't called "Get Ready" :P) but other than that, we're looking for any and all feedback on this!!

AWESOME - you and Loet are improving at such a fast rate. Here's feedback:

1. Does anything confuse you? No - Controls were smooth. Prompts worked. Took 1 round of a quick game over to understand what was going on.

2. Do you wonder where anything comes from? Unless you mean story wise - as in where do the zombies come from - No

3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much? again - caught on after 1 round of play

4. Does it feel too hard/too easy? More difficult mode could not hurt

5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way? More difficult mode could not hurt

6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used? Yes. was easy to see the range of each weapon. There was a couple of times that the shotgun animation seemed to take a bit too long

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :D Loved the art and the controls were great. Old idea with a nice new spin. Really impressed with the quality of this. Especially since you guys threw it together so fast. This would be great for mobile, and I would happily PAY for it.

1) I'm not sure whether I can have more than 1 shell.2) I don't know where I get new ammo. I got it sometimes, and I think it was from the larger zombies, but I'm not sure.(After reading everything I now know where this comes from.)3) I feel that they communicate well enough after you've seen all of them. It's still sometimes easy to mistake one for the other, but I feel the balance is good enough that it's my fault when I miss the cues, which is a good thing. ;) 4) Slightly hard to start out, but easy to pick up. Maybe slightly too easy after a while.5) Yup :)6) I know when I fire the shotgun because of the sound and puff of smoke. Do you mean it changes when I hit things...because then no.7) DO MORE JUICE :D, I think this is the perfect game to go bonkers with minimal input and maximum feedback. Essentially juice the crap out of it so that even if you only press one button you feel like a superhero every time you do it at the exact right time. You might also consider implementing other weapons like flame throwers and stuff...essentially same mechanic as shotgun, just moar juice. :)

1. Does anything confuse you?I did not immediately notice the difference between shot gun and bat, and at that time the shell in the interface confused me.

2. Do you wonder where anything comes from?I did wonder where the shells come from after I realised what they were.

3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much?Yeah (after a play or two); the one woman with her hands to her face often tricked me.

4. Does it feel too hard/too easy?

5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way?Just the right level of frustration to cause mild addiction.

6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used?After a while yes.

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :DOn my keyboard there seems to be a slight delay; many of my deaths seemed a bit unfair (I was hitting and the zombie was on front of me). Maybe this is not a problem for actual tap.

1. Does anything confuse you?I initially thought that you double tap to fire the shotgun. Still not too sure when the shotgun gets fired. Is it when you're furhter from the zombie that the bat won't hit, then it fires?

2. Do you wonder where anything comes from?Nope. I'm guessing it's a zombie apocalypse or something.

3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much?It took me a few rounds to realize that the zombies had "holes" in their heads. When playing a game like this you're trying to make a quick pattern to remember the different elements without spending to much time inspecting the element (zombie/human). So, Initially I was looking for arms waving to signify the zombies but the humans do that as well, etc. You get my point.. :P

4. Does it feel too hard/too easy?First off, yes. Then you get a hang of it and then it becomes simple enough (not too easy).

5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way?Def. Good way, I guess because you don't want to feel so useless. so you keep playing.

6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used?Nope. see 1.

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :DI love the slow mo when you hit the human and the game ends. It's the little things.

6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used?

I only got to 11 civilians saved, but up until that point I couldn't see a reason for the shotgun to exist.

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL?

I'd like for my past actions, and the way they are performed, to have some bearing on my current situation. I'd like for there to be some resource/property I must manage where if done poorly it spins out of control.

To be honest we've thought of the civvies as lives thing... But we feel like we don't want to drag a play out unnecessarily long (by adding essentially more content) - as this was a super minimal scope game, we thought it would be best if we kept it insta-death. Call it Flappy learning XD

Ideas included zombies taking out one of your civvies if you hit them, or heck taking out HALF your civvies if you hit them. But again, it just means your score gets a knock and you continue from a lower score.

The idea for the shotgun vs baseball bat is that the baseball bat needs to be timed much better than the shotgun as it's a melee weapon. If you miss the timing on the baseball bat you just die. (plus the game gets subtly harder the more people you rescue, did you notice that?). Collecting shells alleviates that difficulty, but in a limited fashion - ie kinda like resource.

Maybe the game needs to be harder? Move even faster? The player moves forward more/faster?

Other ideas included using civvies rescued as an ongoing resource pool - so 10 civvies from this game, 16 from that game, etc, adds up to something that unlocks. Haven't figured that out yet, but... Scope creep XD

The idea for the shotgun vs baseball bat is that the baseball bat needs to be timed much better than the shotgun as it's a melee weapon.

I found the reverse to be true. I lost a lot more lives when using the shotgun. The zombie would somehow reach me before the gun fired. That's why I commented that the animation might be to long. Also think that was why @hermantulleken said:

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :DOn my keyboard there seems to be a slight delay; many of my deaths seemed a bit unfair (I was hitting and the zombie was on front of me). Maybe this is not a problem for actual tap.

1. Not really. Just tap. Took two plays (which was less than a minute) to figure it all out2. I didn't figure out where shells came from. I thought they regenerated over time.3. Yes. Whenever I died from hitting a human or missing a zombie (timing issues aside), I knew it was my own fault, and never felt like I'd been tricked by the game. That's important.4. Difficulty is spot on, I'd say. Difficult, but you sort of get used to it. I don't think scroll speed should change.5. It's very frustrating, but in that way that keeps you playing.6. At first, I didn't get the shotgun, but eventually I figured it out. Except it still looks kind of like I'm swinging the bat...7a. I feel the baseball bat needs a teeny bit more range... Like maybe 10% more... Because occasionally, I'd use the shotgun when I felt I was close enough for the bat. If I was out of shells, this basically meant death.7b. I also felt the slight delay on input.

I found the reverse to be true. I lost a lot more lives when using the shotgun. The zombie would somehow reach me before the gun fired. That's why I commented that the animation might be to long. Also think that was why @hermantulleken said:

That's weird, that should never happen. Are you sure you had shells? If you didn't have shells and you were out of the swing range, you would always try to use the gun, but it would go "click!" As you have no ammo.

However you can always interrupt that action by tapping again in bat range.

On difficulty the player moves forward every time you save someone. I guess we could increase the increment a bit so that when you get use to the game the difficulty scales as well.

@dreampunchboy we will try to submit this Sunday or Monday. It will be a good peg in the ground so we don't fall for scope greep. But it is every so tempting with the likes of flamethrowers etc. that @Rigormortis suggested :)

Firstly I like the focused feedback, and it seems like its worked very well!

Secondly:

1. Does anything confuse you? Nope, pretty clear to me. 2. Do you wonder where anything comes from? No, Im just happy to kill and save. 3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much? Most of the time it is clear, expect for one human on his knees which has caught me out a few times. 4. Does it feel too hard/too easy? I found the timing with the bat quite difficult, but after some time it wasnt too difficult, and it adds a level of skill. 5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way? The timing to hit the zombies with the bat frustarted me a little, not in a good way. But after getting used to it, it became better, and it makes sense to me. You need time to swing it before the zombie is on you. 6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used? Not at first, but I quickly learnt. 7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :D I love using the shot gun, I get a lot of satisfaction from blasting a zombie. An added difficulty could be to have a zombie move toward you.

@loet & @Tuism - after playing this for several more rounds this morning, I would just like to comment that I do not think you guys need to change anything gameplay wise (difficulty or extra feature wise). Just juice the crap out of the title as it is. The difficulty is spot on i.e. It is difficult with regards to the learning curve, but once you get of the hang of the attack mechanics it feels like a skill learnt (if that makes sense at all). You stated that your aim was to keep the scope small and I think you guys have achieved that goal. This is something that is already playable and simply needs some decoration to finish it off. As I stated earlier, I really hope this goes the mobile route as the mechanic (1 button approach) really lends itself to that platform. My "game of the month". Thanks.

..... Doh! Wide screen... The wide screen means we have to up the speed to maintain the difficulty level and that means... Argh. Implications implications. But I'm toying with a 2 player mode and putting it on Ouya, just gotta think it through :P

Hehe, simple but fun and I can see the addiction aspect! I stared at the edge of the game window so long it started having an optical illusion where it seemed like the sides of the window were expanding XD

We're busy this week with polish and finishing and tweaking some mechanics:

1. Day/night cycle in the background animation.2. Zombies' heads will come off. Particle blood.3. We might put in a two-zombie mob so that shotgun becomes more valuable. You can still kill two zombies with two bat swings, but it's much harder.4. Title screen5. Refining some menus and the touch interaction6. Various other bits of juice

Then we're most likely going to release this weekend :) That's the plan anyway! Two weeks!

The bat swing needs more explanation via animation: The timing isn't obvious. So unless the swing happens when you RELEASE the tap (which is the wrong way round, it should start on the press) there seems to be some dead frames before the animation starts that makes it difficult to judge if it's responded or not.

Other than that, your feedback is pretty damn awesome. Why portrait mode though? Is it a thing to keep it "sneakily" playable because landscape mode means people have to spin their phones?

The bat swing - there are some frames before the bat reaches full swing out - so that means you CAN swing too late and a zombie would get you while you're swinging out. The game freezes when you die to emphasise that - right now the interface just appears - but we're going to make the game freeze a bit, then the interface will build in - so that you're given time to SEE that you've swung too late. But it might be difficult sometimes due to, well, pixels.

Does the above add anything to the perception of the slow swing? The swing should be happening as you press it down, I just went to check on the web build, that's the way it is, so, do you think that there shouldn't be any frames before the bat swings out?

From watching people play they seem to pick up the bat timing after some tries (most people go tap tap tap tap and get confused and eventually realise there's a bat). I also want to place more emphasis on the first get ready screen - which is right now missing the title screen and therefore the "get ready" interface build which would allow people to see that you're right in front of the zombie...

As for portrait, A) it fits mobile better as that's how people hold the phones most conveniently, so yes sneakily playable :P and B ) Landscape makes the game easier - or we'd have to up the speed of the run to maintain a similar difficulty, BUT that makes it harder to spot a zombie as the sprite moves a fair bit faster and more subject to "motion blur" - difficult for the eye to track.

Though: We *are* considering that we may flip a landscape version because we have a silly idea of bringing this to the ouya with a two player version XD

@Tuism: I think it's more the expectation that I tapped while a zombie was still in front of me and it ate me anyway. The feedback on the swing needs to either be more obviously a wind-up with higher contrast to explain the delay in getting the "hit" to happen, or it needs to "hit" faster. The thing that feels weird is that there's essentially a too-late-zone where no matter what you do, you waited too long.

I dunno how the freezing will help see that your swing was too late, freezing will stop the animation. You might want to make a custom animation that has the zombie catching the player with the bat in wind-up which then goes flying off towards the right side of the screen to emphasise that there's a swing happening, it's just been interrupted.

The pause while poor Michael Bay (in drag this time) fell over was pretty rad though.

I do see what you mean, yes there's a too-late zone, I thought with experience players will (and from observations they do) learn that they swung too late. But I didn't think that people might completely miss that, though.

By custom animation, do you mean like a comic-strip popover frame that has a "close-up" of a zombie catching you in mid-swing? Cos I can't think of any other way of emphasising that because the pixel dudes are so... pixelly. It makes details like that pretty hard. But I don't really want to introduce more elements...

Could you see the frame that the player stopped at when you swung too late? You usually can see the back swing quite obivously (attaching frames to show), but sometimes the zombie overlaps you slightly or your hat gets in the way (groan).

I think I'll tweak it so that when the zombie gets you, it will check for visual overlap and move out before freezing in place. That should help a bit. Thanks for pointing this out, feedback has been super awesome :D

I was introduced to the game prior, so no confusion, but my wife found it really confusing. At first she tapped like crazy thinking that's what you need to do, then she found it too frustrating to distinguish the zombies from humans (which I guess is the point of the game), so she gave up.

2. Do you wonder where anything comes from?

Shells were explained to me, but if not, I wouldn't have known.

3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much?

Not easily, and this gets frustrating fast, because unlike having to avoid an obstacle or time something, this feels like the game is trying to trick/cheat me. I would love to try this game with the zombies in a dark red colour, for instance, and for difficulty, more than one zombie at a time with less of a gap between NPC's appearing on the screen.

4. Does it feel too hard/too easy?

Too easy when you know who the zombies are, too hard when you don't :-) Yes, I know, that's the point of the game.

5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way?

Yes, not necessarily in a good way. I'd prefer to be challenged to time my hits/shots than have a hard time figuring out if zombie or human. My guess is, if you play long enough, you'll get used to the pattern of zombie/human and find the game too easy.

6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used?

Yes. Love the shotgun :)

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :D

- On the iPad, the game looks overly pixellated. I guess that's the look of the game, but I'd really like less blockiness on a large screen. It makes it hard to identify the zombies (again, I accept that's kind of the point).- I really don't like the sound when you die :(- You should add a delay to the "you're dead" screen, as I'm usually still playing the game and tapping away, only to suddenly find myself in the next game, one shell down.- Make a sound when a civilian is rescued- Pause button causes you to shoot/hit, menu button probably not necessary in the pause screen- Share doesn't work, I'm sure you know that, just throwing it in...

@Tuism - put this on a PC at work today for my staff to play during their lunches. Everyone loved it and it made for some good laughs in the store. Some of the non-gamers at work (guess casual gamers) found it frustrating at first, but even they got the hang of it after a couple of rounds. I think the important thing in that is that EVERYONE tried it for a COUPLE of rounds. Highest score was 38 by one of our cashiers - earned some serious bragging rights :)

Regarding the animation, what I normally do with game animation that needs to be snappy, is that the first frame of the animation is already the key frame of the anticipation (i.e. there are no frames that lead up to it), followed by the "hit" occurring less than 1/10th of a second later. If the hit needs to be more spectacular, then I add trails, fx, flashes, etc.

It's just important that the actual hit occurs within 1/10th of a second of your input (depending on the game).

Sorry for the heartspam, but I <3 you all! :D This sort of focused and hyper-zoomed-in feedback is invaluable, will really help us maximise the minimal experience :D Appreciate it SO much!

1. LOTS of feedback regarding the swing - I think for a game like this, what @Elyaradine said is right, I'm going to have to cut out the winding-up frames so people can focus on the actual timing and not feel like the input is delayed. I was discussing it with a friend, and we were comparing it to fighting games where moves have frames before hit, but in fighting games the moves are diverse and delays are expected, whereas in arcady runner games it's different and people expect action immediately. So we'll make those changes!

2. @TobyK thanks for your input! Don't care about dupes :) All the menus will have a build-in delay - in fact the first screen where it says get ready is flawed in that it never really pauses there. We are still implementing those. And a title screen :) Rescue sounds are to be implemented, shell collection sound & effect is still to be implemented, and yes needs a better death sound. Sound is hard yo!!!

And there are no "patterns" to zombie/human - they're random, but they look different. I guess you meant learning how to identify zombie/humans.

3. The iPad resolution thing - I kinda noticed it too, not sure how to fix that other than to create all-new assets, or to downscale the game a bit for iPad-specific build... Which requires us to move the screen to maintain a similar difficulty, which... etc etc. Hmmmmmm need to think about this.

4. @Dazzfuzz not sure what you mean, do you mean that if you get chowed by a zombie, you fall down slowly too? I wanted to implement that, but I wanted to also show that you may have been still swinging when you got chowed - but if we remove the lead-up frames then that can be done. Or did you mean something else?

NB Changes I'm Considering:

1. After watching many people play, is identifying the zombies from humans a good thing or a bad thing? Is the fact that they're not SUPER distinct a good thing or a bad thing? We could make them super distinct, by colouring the sprites (green heads for zombies, for example), but I do want to keep the silhouette style, which will be hard with that.

2. Alternatively the run speed can be slowed down but the game can get harder quicker. (did anyone notice that the game gets harder?) This is one thing I'm really considering, will probably implement.

3. The bat vs shotgun thing - Right now the bat only happens when there's a target in range, any other time you'll either pull out a shotgun and fail due to no shells, or fire. I want to change it so that you'll always swing a bat, unless there's a target in sight, in which case you'll either fire the gun or fail due to no shells.

This is due to the way I see players engage - they first try to tap tap tap, and usually wasting all the ammo, which is fine, but then they hadn't learned about the bat. If they swing the bat when they're tap tap tapping, they'll understand that there's a melee attack. Then when they happen to tap earlier, they'll use up ammo, and see that they've used up ammo.

@moonstormer (I still find it funny to call people by nicknames when I know their real one :P) if you'd like an iOS build just pop me a mail (mine is s2mega at gmail dot com) and we can get you one via testflight :) Rough edges and all :)

I found the zombies and humans incredibly distinct: Zombies have eye holes, humans don't.

I think just having zombies/humans closer together would help difficulty increase too. Plus did your character scoot forwards ever so slightly as you collect people? If so, that's a neat trick to make it harder as you go along, because it messes with both your attack timing AND your response time to recognise zombies.

Also, the switch to always trying to use the bat on taps and only using the shotgun if it's going to hit something would be a good idea. I think the other thing you could do with shotgun shells to tie their pickup to rescuing people is having the people throw a small shell/box of shells at you as they join you. Then you'd have a link between an on-screen action and the UI action of the shell appearing, plus people would know which human had a shell instead of not being sure where that just came from.

Funny thing is i find it extremely polarised - some people totally didn't get the difference between zombie/human until the were on the verge of giving up, some got it quickly. Guess it's just one of those things - and that people eventually do get it (without my explicit saying/prompting) is a good sign.

Yes, the player moves up the screen ever so slightly with each rescue (to allow space for the crowd, and also to obviously make it harder :P) I think I'll have the possible encounter density increase as the game goes on, too.

Visual and audio cue for collecting a shell are things we hadn't put into the game yet but we planned for it already. Yep :)

3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much?Yes its tricky when people lift there arms up and down but it feels like part of the game challenge.

4. Does it feel too hard/too easy?Feels a bit hard to start with on the pc version. Not sure what its like on the phone version. I can't tell if there is a ramp up with regard to difficulty.

5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way?It does.

6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used?Yes I can.

7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :DNot really sure exactly when I get more ammunition for the shotgun. Whatever the situation is for that I can't tell.

Not sure if this fits but a dusk till dawn theme day night adds an extra how many days kinda of challenge you made and allows for more graphical variance. just a random thought. Also night would be a little harder might be too hard guess that's in the hands the art.

Power-ups like pitchforks for your followers lets the stab one zombie if you miss him then gone might be nice to have a fall back.

I haven't read all the previous comments so please forgive if there's any repeat.

While playing I was late tapping to hit a zombie. I expected to be shown the score screen until I tap on the restart button; but actually, because I can tap anywhere to continue, the game interpreted my late tap as restart.

Was playing the game when I pressed the home button to go to a different app. When I re-launched the app I expected to be in a paused state and I could tap to continue. What actually happened was the screen was frozen for a short time while the music and sound was playing and when the screen unfroze I had been advanced a bit and a new zombie was too close to defeat. I also suggest along with the pause state to have a count down before play resumes when the player in unpauses.

It is too random of when a person is rescued, when bullets are received, and when zombies appear. Some sessions have few people and lots of zombies while others allow you to collect lots of people before a zombie appears. The chance to rescuing a person, receiving bullets or encountering a zombie should have a percentage chance that increases each time the event doesn't happen and when it does the chance resets to the original value. This'll mean the longer the player doesn't encounter a person to rescue the more likely they are the next encounter, and the player is guaranteed bullets after a long period of waiting.

Otherwise I was playing this game in the shops and a couple of people we're watching over my shoulder to see what I was playing! ^_^

I played without reading, but someone did mention the game and a quick overview (tap for zombies, not for humans), but no details before I played.

1. Does anything confuse you? Shotgun shells did at first2. Do you wonder where anything comes from? Shotgun shell - human wasn't too clear at first, but I did make the connection soon enough.3. Do you see the relationship/difference between the zombie and humans without being prompted too much? I'm not sure what you mean by "relationship between" but I did notice the difference, so could at least distinguish between the two.4. Does it feel too hard/too easy? Not entirely sure, which kind of translates as "probably in the sweet spot".5. Does it frustrate you? In a good way? Yes, slightly good slightly bad, but it may just be because I'm not a huge fan of the type of game.6. Do you see the difference between the shotgun and the baseball bat, when which is used? Definitely, although the difference in between when they're used not so much.7. Anything else at all? AT ALL? :D

Most of my feedback has already been said in some form or another but to reiterate:The timing on the swing did annoy me a little bit. I did get used to it after a while, but I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing.Some kind of bad luck protection would be nice. It is pretty frustrating when you start a new game, and 10 zombies later you get your first human. Something like what @Fengol suggested is what I'm thinking of.The rescued humans -> shotgun ammo mechanic definitely needs a visual clue like @dislekcia said, but it sounds like you are planning that.Also not a fan of the losing sound.

After I realized (while reading other posts) that there's no cooldown on tapping, the game became significantly easier, but not necessarily more fun. At first I just tried to tap at the far end of melee range, so that most of the time I would melee the zombie, while bad timing would lead to using a shotgun (too early) or die (much too late). Afterwards I just figured I can spam tap until a zombie dies (although it does waste shotgun ammo).I'm kind of leaning towards the former (with a cooldown on swing/shoot) being a bit more fun, but it could be more frustrating (in a bad way).

To end on a good note: I really like the silhouette art style and how it ties into the identifying your targets mechanic.

We were supposed to finish the beta on the weekend but (obviously) a lot of things were unexpectedly difficult, so we've been delayed a bit... But by tonight or tomorrow I'll put out another build (BETA!) albeit with a lot of things not quite right yet.

In the meantime, instagram videos! (wish I could just straight up embed them) (i have the embed code, is there a way to do html on this forum?)